


Pillowtalk

by HolmesFan



Series: Second Chance AU [3]
Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, Horse puns, Playful teasing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-02-10 20:44:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18668044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HolmesFan/pseuds/HolmesFan
Summary: Elizabeth really does choose the strangest topics to bring up when they are in the most precarious of positions.A direct sequel toRedemption's Promise.





	Pillowtalk

**Author's Note:**

> In which Elizabeth has some more questions.

After the sound defeat and subsequent routing of Cutler Beckett’s EITC armada, the pirate fleet, fat and heavy with the prizes they’d taken, made for home. Shipwreck Cove has been embroiled in an uproarious celebration ever since. The King was, naturally, expected to preside over the revelry, which she was more than happy to do, for a while. A _long_ while.

Dawn the following day saw her and her lover stumbling, bleary eyed and giddy and floundering over their own limbs, up the stairs of their borrowed suite. They’d slept for nigh on ten hours, woken ravenous and in desperate need of a bath, which was duly seen to, and then spent the remainder of the evening making love on every flat surface within reach.

James has completely lost track of time, and, though it is wildly out of character, cannot be prevailed upon to care. He is dozing in a nest of rumpled bedclothes, drifting in and out of pleasant dreams of his childhood. Images of sun-dappled leaves and swaying sweet grass and stones skipped across water clear and still as glass. The cloying scent of honeysuckle. The tang of a storm on the breeze.

A rumble of thunder causes the scene to shimmer and dissipate as he slips back into semi-consciousness. The patter of rain floats in through the open doors. As does the distant hubbub from the still raging commotion nearer the docks.

‘James...are you awake?’

His eyes open and silently regard her, laid out next to him as she is, drenched in candlelight and little else. Elizabeth’s own eyes find his, an earnest fondness shining in their depths. The crease that appears between her brows causes him to ask, ‘Yes, my love?’

She bites back a smile at the low rumble of his voice, reaching out to brush away a few strands of hair that have gotten snagged in his beard. ‘I’ve been thinking.’

‘What about?’ He catches her fingers in his when she doesn’t immediately reply, and her faraway gaze returns to his own.

‘About you. About your past.’ There is a beat where she chews her lip thoughtfully as he patiently waits for her to speak the words clearly bottlenecking on her tongue. Her own resolve shakes them loose. ‘I have another question.’

James sits up, the blankets pooling in his lap. He isn’t sure what to expect, how difficult it will be to provide the answers she seeks. But he’d meant it when he promised to give them. That doesn’t stop the cold thrill of adrenaline that ghosts up his spine. He nods, prompting her to continue.

‘You were with other women before me.’

A statement, not a question at all. James blinks. Once. Twice. He’s not sure what-

‘I assume so, anyway.’ Her lips curl impishly. ‘Otherwise, rumors of your clairvoyance are, yet again, proven true in regards to certain activities.’

Is she teasing him? ‘Ah...thank you?’ Her smile broadens into a full on grin, and he clears his throat awkwardly. ‘Yes. There were...other women. Is that...does it bother you?’

‘Oh, no!’ She waves a hand as if to dispel his embarrassment. Nevermind that she had most likely intentionally inflicted it. ‘It’s nothing like that. I’m merely curious. Were there any after your restart?’

‘No. My attentions were otherwise engaged.’

Her expression takes on a measure of blithe disbelief. ‘What? Upon me? Even when I was just a girl?’

‘No! That’s not what I meant.’ He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. ‘I was simply preoccupied with my work. Rebuilding my status and career and such. I didn’t have time for...’ The rest sticks to the roof of his mouth, and he allows it to stay there.

‘There are certain things one can _make_ time for, James,’ she counters, dark eyes glittering.

‘It was not a priority, Elizabeth.’

‘It is for most men.’

Now she is undeniably teasing him. James’ brows draw in a tight frown. ‘What are you implying?’

‘I think...’ she practically purrs as her fingers skate up his arm and over across his chest. ‘I think you were saving yourself for me.’

All obstinacy leaks out of him at the pleasure in her tone. He can’t help the self-deprecating twitch of his lips. ‘It sounds rather pitiful when you put it like that, doesn’t it?’

‘Not at all!’ She laughs musically, threading her wandering digits into his own. ‘I find it to be highly romantic.’

They remain that way for a time, hands clasped, listening to the rain, watching the shadows dance across the walls and gather above the rafters. James is on the verge of suggesting they put out the lights and retire in earnest when Elizabeth sucks in a great breath and pins him with an eager gaze.

‘So. Tell me of these other women. What were they like? How many were there? Were you ever...in love with them?’

‘It was a very long time ago. I don’t rightly remember.’

Elizabeth snorts, releasing her grip on him to cross her arms over her chest. ‘James. You remember _everything._ No matter how trivial or diminutive. Do you really expect me to believe you can’t recall any details about the women you’ve-’

‘Why is this so important to you all of a sudden?’ He interjects irritably.

Her nostrils flare at the defiance. ‘Because _you’re_ important to me, you ass. I’ve only just found out that there’s great deal about you I don’t know. A significant portion of your life in which I have not shared. Is it really so terrible that I should want to bridge that divide?’

It isn’t. In point of fact, James is humbled by her desire to understand him. Though, not quite enough to completely chase away his knee-jerk surliness at her prodding. ‘Very well,’ he concedes without any attempt to disguise his chagrin. ‘Make your inquiries.’

‘This isn’t an interrogation,’ she sighs, and then rolls her eyes at his answering shrug. ‘So stubborn...fine. How many?’

‘...no more than ten.’

Her eyebrows fly up. ‘That is...not an exact number.’

‘Things got hazy for a time. But, before Tortuga there were only two.’

‘Ah.’ Elizabeth’s features soften at this, and he searches her eyes warily, unable to brook the idea of her pity. But there is none to be found. Only warmth. Warmth in spades.

She loves him. She wants to be with him. Wants to _know_ him.

 _Someday,_ he thinks as she lays a gentle kiss against the scar on his shoulder. _Someday I shall remember that without her having to remind me._

‘Will you tell me about the first? Please?’

It will never be lost on him, the marvel that she has the ability to command him, and yet, still asks instead. How could he possibly refuse her?

‘She was a working girl in Madras. Rose or Rosie or...something like that. I was...sixteen? Some of my contemporaries purchased her time as a birthday present. That’s what they claimed, anyway. Not a one among them actually knew when my birthday was. But…’

‘I was very nervous. And she was very kind. We spent the majority of the evening merely talking. About our families, our travels, our dreams. She had a melancholy look about her, an abiding loneliness in her eyes. But when she spoke of home, she glowed from the inside out.’

‘When I left in the morning, she tried to return her fee. But I couldn’t let her. She was saving to get back, you see? I ended up leaving all the money I was carrying on the bureau. At least a week’s wages. I don’t even know if she ever found it. If she ever returned home.’

Elizabeth’s eyes sparkle with reflected light. ‘What a sweet young man you were.’

Uncomfortable, James says nothing. He’s never told anyone about this before. Never had anyone ask, well, beyond his fellow officers who’d sprung for the gift. And even then, he’d declined comment to fervently vocal disapproval. Somehow, it never felt like _his_ story to share. He wonders where the girl called Rose is now. Is she even alive?

As though she senses his lapse into wistful memory, Elizabeth draws his attention back into the present by stretching out across the mattress in front of him, peering up into his down-turned face like a cat requesting its belly be rubbed. ‘What of the other? Was she special to you as well?’

 _Special?_ James lets the assumption slide while still marking it as strange. ‘She was a young widow I met in Port Royal not long after being posted there. Well-connected. Wealthy. Six years my senior with a talent for cards and a taste for red wine.’

‘Did she seduce you?’

He scoffs. ‘It wasn’t so illicit as all that.’

Her lips bow slyly. ‘That’s not a no.’

‘...it is not.’

Elizabeth giggles at this concession, nose crinkling, teeth bared around the tip of her pink tongue, and he is privately delighted to have made her laugh.

‘How long were the two of you together?’

‘Officially, we never were. It was a...discreet arrangement that lasted some three years until she remarried.’

‘Oh,’ her smile falters.

‘You find that troubling?’

‘Only if you do. Did you not have feelings for her?’

‘It wouldn’t have mattered if I did. She was far above my station, and, on my Captain’s salary, I never would have been able to afford her...expenses. Besides, ‘ he adds at the concern etching her brow. ‘We would have been ill suited in the long term. Our goals were very different.’

She ponders that for a moment before mischief sparks in her eye. ‘Did she live in Port Royal this time around, too?’

‘...yes…’

‘Who was it? Oh, James, you must tell me!’

Must he? She’s sat back up now, crowding him in her anticipation. ‘I...doubt you would have traveled in the same circles.’

But his hesitation has only exacerbated her curiosity, a pitfall he _should_ be much more adept at avoiding by now. ‘If you don’t tell me, I’ll just have to guess. And you know I’ll pick the worst possible answers.’

She will needle him into an admission either way. Better to give in now and be done with it. 

‘...Ashton. Ed-’

‘ _Edith_ Ashton?!’ The absolute glee in her voice worries him. As does the way she claps her hands together as though she’s won a bet. ‘Oh, James! Not only did I _know_ her, I’ve personally heard her speak of her goings on! She was ever so keen on young men in uniform!’

Oh dear. This won’t do at all. There’s got to be some way he can change the subject before-

‘Rumor has it,’ she simpers around a smirk. ‘She was _singularly_ adventurous.’

Elizabeth stares at James expectantly, and he stares right back, expressionless as he can manage. A denial will accomplish nothing when she has made no concrete accusations. But...the statement is not untrue. The widow Ashton was very fond of her...toys.

After a half minute of charged silence, Elizabeth bursts into boisterous laughter. ‘Then it’s true!’

‘As I have no idea to what you’re referring, I can neither confirm nor deny the validity of that assertion.’

She reaches out to steady herself with a hand on his knee, gasping for breath amid her words. ‘Oh, but you already _have,_ Darling! To think! I could have gotten away with so much _more!_ ’

Thoroughly mortified, James briefly contemplates flinging himself from the balcony. But, as Elizabeth dissolves into unintelligible squeaking amid her guffaws, tears carving paths down her cheeks, he swallows his humiliation with a chaser of happiness. Only two days ago, they were flying in the face of certain death. And now? Now, everything is so much more than he could have ever hoped for. In either of his lives.

In Tortuga, there had been a veritable parade of whores, each indistinguishable from the others in his rum-soaked stupor. Except the last. In the dim light, if you were thrice in your cups and observing from precisely the right angle...she could almost be mistaken for Elizabeth. A cheap substitute for the real thing that shames him to this day. But. That was not in this life. He has to learn to let go.

‘It’s strange to think,’ Elizabeth remarks with a contented sigh, effectively interrupting his brown study. ‘If you met her after your promotion to Captain, that would mean that this time around...you didn’t…’

‘Correct.’

The grin that splits her features beams with all the intensity of the sun. ‘You really were saving yourself for me, weren’t you?’

‘Does that please you?’

She reaches out and traces his jaw with cool fingers. ‘Very much.’

James rewards her with a smile, taking her hand in his to kiss each fingertip individually.

‘Now, this isn’t exactly a question, but I have been thinking on something else.’

‘Hmm?’ He hums against her wrist.

‘Our first- James, stop that. It tickles. Our first time together...it didn’t hurt. I was always told it would be painful. But it wasn’t. Quite the opposite, really.’

James blinks. She really does choose the strangest topics to bring up while they are alone. Often while they are naked. But this one, it truly leaves him confounded. Is he expected to reply?

Seemingly not, for she breezily forges on, ‘Do you remember when I was fourteen? I had that riding accident?’

 _Another change in subject?_ ‘I do. You suffered a sprained wrist, as I recall. And swore off the beasts for good.’

‘And I meant it. But...I never told you the full extent of my injuries. I had a nasty bruise on my hip for nigh on two weeks. But I also bled. As though I was on my courses.’

He cannot believe how easily she is bringing up this subject, as though it is the most natural thing in the world.

‘But I _wasn’t._ And it was only for one night. So I’ve been wondering if perhaps…’

She trails off when James makes a strangled noise in his throat, looking up at him for the first time since she’s launched into this bizarre business. ‘What?’

‘Am I to understand that, in effect, what you are insinuating is that your maidenhead was taken by a horse?’

James watches as her brows crawl all the way up her face, only to descend when he can no longer fight back the laughter trapped behind his teeth.

‘It’s not that funny!’ She grouses, and he cackles all the harder. ‘And it was terribly traumatic at the time!’

He can’t breathe. It’s too much. _A horse!_

‘If you speak a word of this to anyone, I _swear_ I will serve your liver with potatoes.’

James clamps down on his laughter, composing himself as best he can. ‘Then I suppose it would be _hoof_ me to keep it to myself. Given your _unbridled_ disapproval.’

Elizabeth’s frown deepens dramatically. Her eyes narrow dangerously. ‘I’m warning you, Norrington…’

‘I promise to re _mane_ silent. After all, I would hate for you to be _saddled_ with the inevitable embarrassment.’

‘Are you done?’

There is a tick where all he does is grin at her. Her lips twitch. 

Then James whinnies, and she tackles him back against the headboard.

Her retribution is swift.

\---

**Author's Note:**

> ~ 🐴 ~ 🐴 ~ 🐴 ~ 🐴 ~ 
> 
> Thanks for reading! ♡
> 
> ~ 🐴 ~ 🐴 ~ 🐴 ~ 🐴 ~


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